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In the midst of their wrangling this week with GOP leaders over a controversial spending bill rider to lift campaign-finance restrictions on political parties, members of the House’s far-right Freedom Caucus had a bright idea. Why not compromise, Freedom Caucus members argued , by lifting the limits on outside groups as well as political parties? Conservatives had hated Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s first idea, which was to lift the cap on what parties may spend in coordination with candidates. That struck Tea Party lawmakers and activists as a power grab by the GOP establishment. Under the right-wingers’ plan, non-party super PACs and politically active nonprofits would also be free to coordinate directly with candidates. As Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan declared at a “Conversations With Conservatives” event on Capitol Hill this week, freeing up the parties is “not the direction you need to go unless you’re going to free up...

AP Photo/Cheryl Senter Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton at the NHDP annual Jefferson Jackson dinner in Manchester, New Hampshire, Sunday, November 29, 2015. For Democrats, Hillary Clinton’s talent for collecting super-sized campaign checks is reason both to celebrate and agonize. On the one hand, Clinton’s high-dollar fundraising for the Democratic National Committee and 32 state party committees helps blunt Republicans’ substantial big-money advantage. Republicans have exploited new political party fundraising loopholes much more aggressively than Democrats, and Clinton’s September joint fundraising agreement with Democratic Party committees helps even the scales. But Clinton’s Midas touch with big donors also poses substantial dangers, both to her campaign and to Democrats in 2016. As six-figure checks roll in to the Hillary Victory Fund—a so-called joint fundraising committee that will divvy up receipts among Clinton’s...